Officially inducted into parenthood: Merry Christmas!

My inlaws told Paul and I that we have officially been inducted into parenthood because we caught Brandon's stomach virus and on a holiday.  Luckily it was only Christmas eve, but it looks like the bug has spread to Grandpa.  So Grandma is the only one to not have caught the stomach bug.  The only good news on this bug is that it's only 24 hours.

According to the weather men for the past two weeks they were predicting a white Christmas for NY and NJ, but they were one day off.  Today we are munching on left over Christmas dinner and dessert while the snow falls and falls and falls.

Before the snow started I ran out to the baby store to buy a sleepsack to help Brandon sleep better at night.  We remembered EVERYTHING except the sack!  For the past 3 nights Brandon has been waking up due to gas, blanket kick offs, and being cold.  I am hoping this purchase will ease our sanity for the next couple of days until we go home.  So far B is napping with the sack and seems to be in dream land.

Paul and I have were busy at work preparing for Santa to come 2 days early to VA. You could not imagine the negotions I had to deal with from the North Pole. Santa does not like to make early stops. But the morning of the 23rd he came through (the secret is pistachio and vanilla bean macarons)! We had Christmas Eve at Aunt Dana and Uncle Stevens house and then Christmas Day at Grandma and Grandpa Kelly. Santa visited everyones house with gifts for him. I can no longer say this little guy has no toys. I was telling Paul that I think we need to buy a toy chest for the amount of toys Brandon got this Christmas.





Our beautiful Tree in Virginia the morning of Dec 23rd




brandon loving his Dutch wooden toys



Playing with his NEW remote control surrounded by his other toys from Santa

Awesome portable highchair!  turns almost ANY chair into a highchair!  A MUST have for MOMS

Thanks Aunt Dana and Uncle Steven, Dan, and Shannon!!



playing with papper




more toys?



Suit up!



And how do I look from this angle??




Do I have to wear these shoes Ma?




Alex helping me feed Brandon




All of Brandon's little cousins on Christmas Day.  Brandon Not pictured because the Prince needed his beauty sleep



Day after Christmas...not sure if he's playing or searching for more presents?

Caution: Stomach virus details

Sunday night Paul went into Brandon's room around 3AM because he was moaning.  After a diaper change and lots of flatulence Brandon let out an explosive diaper.  Paul called for me to help him get the soiled clothing  off B.  It turned out the only way to get them off was to cut them off unless we wanted to smear poop all over Brandon's head.  After a change of diaper, onsie, and pajamas we started calming him down with a little bit of a bottle.  Well this was a mistake because after just 3oz.  he vomited all over me, the rocking chair, and himself.  I couldn't believe it.  This meant it was time for a bath (at 4AM).  After a bath, we changed him into a new diaper, onsie, and pajama.  Brandon slept for maybe 1 hour until he was up again.  I gave up getting him back to sleep and took him downstairs to try and hydrate him.  Well after maybe 2tbs of oatmeal and 2oz of formula 5 minutes later is all came up again in Mommy's face and hair.  I hope no one has to ever experience getting vomited on in the face, I was grossed out, but I was more concerned for Brandon's health.  At 6:30AM  I called the advice nurse to leave a message.  She got back to me at 8:30  You can only imagine my freak outs for the next two hours as Brandon keeps having everything exit his body from both ends.  I called my friend Aneta who has two children to get advice and she said to stop giving formula because that just dehydrates them more as they throw up.  And after I spoke with her the advice nurse called me back and said to give Brandon water 1 teaspoon at a time every 15 minutes.  Then after a couple teaspoons so give a teaspoon of pedialyte.  Brandon and I had to go to the store to get pedialyte and a dropped to feed him 1 tsp at a time.  AND get ready to take a trip to the doctors office because she was concerned that he wasn't having any wet diapers.

Well after the 15 min increments of water and then pedialyte I gave B some pedialyte in his sippy cup (he drinks slower out of this rather than a bottle)  Brandon was still not feel good at the doctors, but I think he was on empty and exhausted from barely sleeping.  The doctor said he'll be fine (which he is) and to just let him eat when he wants to and it should pass in 24 hours.

I am so happy that our doctor was right.  This morning at 3AM Brandon woke up starving for a bottle.  Then this morning he ate his normal breakfast.  He is 100% back to normal, just in time for Christmas!!

New bedtime

We got so used to putting Brandon to bed at 8:30 we never thought twice that maybe it was to late of a bedtime.  But recently he has been sleeping horribly.  Waking 2-3 times a night.  I decided to google search this problem we've been having and found out this.


"In their efforts to encourage their baby to sleep better, one approach that many parents use is to put their baby to bed later in the evening. They think, “If he’s “really tired” he’ll sleep better, right?” Wrong! This often backfires because Baby becomes overtired, and chronically sleep-deprived.  In the majority of cases, a baby’s biological clock is preset for an early bedtime. When parents work with that time, a baby falls asleep more easily and stays asleep more peacefully. Most babies are primed to go to sleep for the night as early as 6:30 or 7:00 p.m.  For babies, early to bed does not mean early to rise! Most babies sleep longer with an earlier bedtime. Many parents are afraid to put their baby to bed so early, thinking that they will then face a 5 a.m. wake up call. But keeping your little one up too late backfires, and more often, a late night is the one followed by that early morning awakening. 

 I was not 100% sure if we put Brandon to bed early he would be up at 4AM ready to play.  But this web information was correct.  Last night we put Brandon down at 6PM when he was rubbing his eyes and exhausted right after dinner.  He didn't even drink a whole ounce of milk before falling asleep.  After 40 minutes he woke and drank the rest of the bottle and then was in dream land until...drum roll please.... 5:30AM.  Then he took a bottle and slept again until 7:45AM.  I've also noticed an improvement in his mood.  He is no longer grumpy and needing 2 morning naps, just one nap before lunch recharges his battery.

It was also really nice to be able to spend some time with Paul without Brandon in front of us.  It's been months since we've had a whole evening to ourselves.  Hoping this new bedtime is the answer to all our sleep problems.

TV

Brandon loves to watch TV.  But recently he loves to hold the remote control.  At first I tried to keep it away from him, but the screaming just wasn't worth it.  Now we make it a game of putting it just out of reach on the floor so he has to crawl to it.
This morning he got the remote and started with putting it in his mouth.  Then he started to press the buttons.  Daddy loved this because he changed it from Nick Jr. to college basketball then to pre-game NFL talk.  But just as we were laughing about this he changed it once more to On Demand movies and pressed a couple buttons to be only one click from charging a movie to our account.  Daddy caught him before he ordered the movie, but it got us thinking that maybe we need to put some locks on the TV.  Too soon??

Standing

2 seconds after this was taken he fell down

the hicky

In the morning Brandon is always extra groggy.  He normally wakes up early and then takes a nap before lunch.  Well on Friday morning when he was starting to fall asleep he latched on to my shoulder for 5 seconds and started sucking.  Later that morning while I was getting ready for the gym I found this on my shoulder. 

My son gave me a hicky!

December Brandon fun facts

1.  Mommy has taught me to wave bye bye

2. I said Mama for the first time today.

3.  All I'm asking Santa for this year is my first tooth.

4.  I can eat rice and cheerios

5.  I love to throw the cheerios

6.  I get to use my sippy cup everyday and starting next month I'll use it twice a day!!

7.  Mommy and Daddy took out their silly Christmas hats from Germany and Austria and I laugh whenever I see them.

8.   I had my first babysitter (Aunt Lindsey) last weekend while Mama and Papa went out for the night

9.  I like to try to pull myself up to standing while close to the coffee table...mommy doesn't like this because I bang my head on the table.

10.  I love napping in the car even if it's only for 5-10 minute car rides.

11.  Mommy joined Washington Sports Club and I joined the baby club there!

12.  I weigh 22lbs and am 30.5 inches long!

13.  I wake up so early every morning that  I need 2 morning naps before I'm ready for my day.

14.  I met santa and didn't like it, so don't be fooled by the picture because that was the only second I was not crying.

unperfect parent

Today was one of those "Mom Moments" where I wanted to crawl into a dark room and hide.  We were at the mall shopping with friends and around 11:30 after his friends met Santa Brandon started to freak out in an I'm thirsty and hungry way.  So I went to give him his sippy cup, but I looked in my bag and it was forgotten.  I went into TJ Max and got a new sippy cup while B was moaning for his juice.  Well he eventually got his juice and happily drank for about 5 minutes when he looked down at his cup, took it out of his mouth, and proceeded to scream at me.  I knew we wanted some lunch so I sat down and gave him some Gerber apples.  Well after that he was still hungry so I cracked open the rice cereal.  Brandon was still freaking out while eating the cereal.  Well after a couple more minutes I gave up feeding him the  cereal and starting walking with my stroller to the food court to get Brandon in a high chair to feed him properly, he was eating in his stroller and didn't seem to be enjoying it.  Well the high chair was a failure too.  THEN I realized he had not had any formula since bedtime last night.  I quickly made a bottle and got him comfy in my arms to drink up.  He fell asleep by the end of the bottle and had a nice nap while we ate lunch.

I felt so horrible that I forgot to give Brandon a bottle in the morning when he woke up.  But the reason I forgot is that Brandon slept all night (8-7:30 straight!!!!) and he hasn't done this in weeks.  I'd gotten used to feeding him in the middle of the night and he was used to not getting a bottle until the afternoon. 

I'm a little hard on myself for these things, but it was so frustrating to not know how to stop Brandon from screaming.  He was getting so upset that his forehead was red with spots.  Luckily for the rest of the day B was back to the angel baby he is normally

A teething Foodie

Brandon loves to eat.  In the past 2 weeks he's been introduced to cheerios and rice.  The cheerios are a messy snack because Brandon loves to throw them around the dining room (he loves it).  Tonight we had some left over apple slices.  We figure anything big enough for him to gum and not choke on is safe.  The apple didn't work so well.  I'm thinking after he gets a tooth or two he'll like them better.  It's so much easier feeding Brandon table food.

One food that is the best are Earth's Bests teething biscuits. They make a mess but Brandon loves to gum and suck them down along with playing with his sippy juice cup.  Brandon loves the afternoon because he knows it's sippy time.  He loves having his juice cold (which I think is weird, but I guess it helps with teething).  I'm so proud of how fast he is learning his coordination.  He's the sippy cup King!!

Brandon asking santa for lots of Toys

WSC

I am trying A FREE week membership at Washington Sports Club.  I went with them because they have babysitting (they call it the Kids Party room) for $1.50 per 30 minutes.  Everyone I've spoken with said that's an awesome deal compared to the gyms they go to.   Today was my second time going but 1st time with Brandon.  I was a little worried because B was not the best sleeper last night (up at midnight to play...ahhhhhh!!!)  but I plopped him on the floor and all the little 2-3 year olds came close to him to meet the new kid and Brandon did just fine.  For today we only did 30 minutes.  But the next day we get to go he'll go in for a whole hour so Mama can do a yoga or pilates class.

My first trip to WSC was crazy.  I went on Saturday because I wanted to try the yoga class.  I'm not even sure why I went on Saturday, I know once I have the membership I won't go on weekends, but I think I was just very excited to get one step closer to being back in my routine.  Well at yoga an older man was doing the class.  It was his first time ever doing yoga and he had some health issues.  The instructor told him to not try all the poses we were going to do, but he didn't listen.  30 minutes in he got stuck in one of the cat poses and luckily a doctor was in the yoga class with us, but he ended up making the older man cause a scene and getting management to take the man out of the class.  Soo a nice and calm yoga class was not what I received that Saturday morning.  I was also worried about the babysitting area.  I saw 6-7 kids with just one babysitter, YIKES!  The children were ranging from 3 months to probably 8 years old, but that's still a lot for one person.  I decided to give them a second chance since I will never be bringing Brandon on weekends or evenings.  Today was much much much better. 10 kids with 2-3 babysitters.  I'm glad I gave them a second first impression because after Saturday I was ready to find a new place to workout.

Hopefully adding some exercise can help boost my adrenaline to keep me going all day.  I keep getting these bursts of exhaustion around 4PM, it could be my lack of moving around, the winter, or the fact I'm entertaining a 7 month old all day long...maybe it's all 3?  I need a red bull!

busy bee

I already can see that this month is going to be even busier than our first month back in America.  Between regular daily routines we are throwing in holiday shopping, decorating the house, and tons of traveling.  So this leaves opera-mommy less time to blog and post pictures.  I felt terrible that I forgot our camera in VA during our visit in NY, we bought a cheap camera at Wal-mart to use for the week but the quality was not even close to what we are used to.  So I am making it a priority to start packing for our trip to NJ/NY a week in advanced and not just 12 hours, Brandon had everything he needed, but I'm surprised I had enough to wear for 6 days.  On our way home from Thanksgiving dinner I was down to my last outfit (which was my dressy clothes) I was praying B wouldn't spit up or wipe his dirty hands down the front.  I was lucky and he kept me clean.

I've found that with Brandon being more rambunctious it's so hard to get a lot done in one day.  The past couple nights Paul and I have been able to do one thing a night.  It took 2 evenings to get 2 baby gates up.  One evening to get the lights on the Christmas tree.  And I'm hoping tonight we can decorate the tree because tomorrow Brandon has a play date with his friend Nick and mommy Laura.   I could not be happier that we're not flying this year because I don't think I could add that stress to our already full plate.

Cruising around with Daddy

Wipe out!

My little seat

today we ordered this travel seat for feeding Brandon when we're not home.  For Thanksgiving we had our home highchair with us, but it was a whole ordeal of taking it apart and putting it back together and then taking it apart AGAIN!  So I knew we couldn't do this any more.   My goal was to find something compact and easy to set up.  This is folds into the size of a diaper in a matching cloth case.  We ordered the blue and gray polka dots.

Grandma and Grandpa Kelly time plus some Manhattan time

Paul and I took a road trip to Long Island to visit his parents before we go to my family's Thanksgiving on Thursday.  Brandon got to meet a good amount of his Aunts and cousins between Saturday and Sunday, he also got to sleep more than I've ever seen him sleep in his life. 

On the car ride he woke up once in Maryland for lunch and then slept again until we were in the Lincoln tunnel.  At this point I moved to the back seat of the car because I know Brandon likes to freak out during the last 20 minutes of any car ride.  Well our last 20 minutes turned into 2 hours.  Paul made one wrong turn after the Lincoln tunnel and we ended up forced on to 42nd Street during grid-lock!  Brandon seemed to not care, but Daddy was stressed.  After we made it over the Queens boro bridge the GPS said we were only 5 minutes away, but for some reason this neighborhood (Astoria) did not look like Aunt Pat's neighborhood.  So after calling Paul's father we found out his dad forgot to put a number on the house address.  So we were 20 minutes away from Flushing Queens!!!  By this time none us were happy, Mama had a head ache and was hungry, Brandon soiled his diaper, and Paul had road rage mixed with exhaustion and was probably hungry too.  But in the end we made it to his Aunts and visited for 2 hours.  After we piled in the car to go further East on the island to his parents house.  Saturday night Brandon stayed up until 11PM!!  It was a rough night, but I think we got him back to sleeping at night and not during the day.  B just loves his new car seat so much he can sleep 3 + hour intervals!  Great for car rides, horrible for  bedtime because then he wants to play at 4AM.

Yesterday Marie and Pete had Aunt Anita, Uncle Ashvin, Aunt Dana, and Uncle Steven over for the afternoon and dinner.  Here are a few pictures from my camera. Ignore the time stamps I never set the date for this camera and didn't learn how to take them off until this morning.

Papa Paul lookin' good!

Nov 21 I learned how to tip the sippy cup to drink on my own!!!



Uncle Ashvin and Aunt Dana in the back



mama and B at dinner

Rosie the Roomba babysitting Brandon

house pictures slowly coming up

So I am having company over tomorrow so it was the greatest excuse to finish unpacking AND clean house!  And when I have a clean house I can post pictures for all you folks too far away to visit us.  I'm sad that we're not decorating the walls with our art or framed family pictures, but they'll be saved for when we buy a place.  So below are pictures of Brandon's room.  After a month it's finally complete, it only took so long because our dryer vent was broken and was just fixed this past Tuesday (after 1 month with no dryer).  I refused to put sea/air shipment laundry away without being cleaned.    I'm hoping tomorrow morning I can get pictures of our den, dining room, living room, and kitchen before Brandon's play date with some new friends!

Brandon's new nursery plus some new pictures

You can see my rocking chair I restored and painted

Part 1 of Brandon's clothes

Part 2, this kid has even more clothes put away for later next year

While Mommy cleans Brandon spins in his crib.  I can't believe how long he is!

Such a cute smile

Thumb man!

Hey B are you catchin' flies with that open mouth?

I love those baby blues!!

what a face!!

Hi Everyone!!!

B can move his eye brows

Hungry Baby

I feel like I've been obsessed with how much B is eating everyday, but it's only because I"m not used to seeing someone so small eat such large portions of baby food.  I wish this kid would get some teeth in already so he could start on some other yummy foods.  But for now I have started to just give him a lot more baby food.  This boy sat and ate a bowl of rice cereal, cup of yogurt, and a Gerber 2nds cup for dinner last night.

One major reason I've been worried he hasn't been eating enough is that he is waking up in the middle of the night.  We were blaming it on teething, but after a couple nights of B waking up really hungry we knew he maybe not getting enough dinner.  So after Tuesday night food fest Brandon slept all night.  It's so funny because Paul and I awoke at 6AM to Brandon making his "come get me" noises we both looked at each other wondering if the other went to get B in the middle of the night.  I keep forgetting that it's normal to be able to sleep all night, just not when you have a baby.

I can't believe were at the halfway mark of November.  Where has the time gone?  I guess with a baby, moving, and being very busy with family and friends time just zooms on by.  Paul and I are really happy that we are almost completely unpacked.  Right now we're still trying to find homes for kitchen appliances, dishes, books, and other belongings.  But we did find that there were a couple of things that just were to large or we had to many of.  So we decided to donate them. For the most part we are giving a good amount of Paul's books he doesn't read to the Fairfax County library.  But for the other items we have consigned so try our luck and see if someone else wants to buy it.  The consignment shop I chose gives 40% of the sale to the Fairfax hospitals (we get the other 60%).

Today's big project is getting our dryer fixed.  Our repairman told me that our entire dryer vent was clogged with lint and that the outside vent was screwed closed (Why would someone do that??).  He's also fixing the window screens, and the storm windows (none of them stay opened) I felt bad to make such a long list of repairs for the owners, but if we don't ask then the next owners or tenants will have to get it fixed.  Hopefully after today we won't have any more problems.  It's so exciting to think that in less than 6 months we'll be in the process of buying a house!

Aunt Lindsey and Rob came to visit

hugs

snuggles

Brandon likes to walk up people

Brandon checking out Robs 12 hour shadow!

Look how happy B is to have Lindsey and Rob here!

such a cutie!

Daddy (aka Horsey) and Brandon

Almost bedtime and reading his books!

would rather play his guitar

Aunt Lindsey time

Cell phone

So I bought Brandon a toy cell phone.  But when I got home we took it out of the package flipped it shut and I realized it is also a purse.  I hate to take it back because B has drooled all over it and seems to love the rings all over the handle.  Plus he really likes it.  I'll make sure to not get him girls toys from now on.

Cell phone opened (this was how it was displayed in the packaging that never claimed it was a purse)

TOTALLY looks like a purse when closed

New car seat

So it's been 1 week in the new car seat and besides the 2 hour freak out from our road trip Brandon seems to love his forward facing seat.  He's in it a bit early. (The label says to wait until 9 month)  But his weight and height are at the starting mark.  He's so funny, every time I put him in the seat he is asleep in less than 2 minutes.  This makes running errands a bit difficult because I have to take him out of the seat into the stroller.  But he seems to stay asleep most of the time between transfers.

He also LOVES playing with his toy steering wheel.  Here is a picture of him sleeping at the wheel he's nice and cozy in the recline position here

Visiting Aunt Christine, Tyler and Lauren

watchin' Dora

Tyler shared his childhood toy with brandon

Cousins!

The boys and ducky

Hey Tyler look at ME!

Tyler and

Come here and give me hug Ty!

Taken by Aunt Christine

Taken by Aunt Christine

Aunt Ashley and Brandon with Tyler and Lauren